Writers Supporting Writers

As I recorded on this blog some six months ago or so, I decided to submit my most recently completed novel to a publisher during their once every couple of years open window for un-agented authors. With six to nine months to wait for them to get back to me, I decided to query this novel, i.e. send query letters to literary agents to see if they would take it on. I had no real expectations of success in either venture, I did it for the experience of doing it. The last novel I had queried – directly to publishers – was in 1980, so it was sort of a trip down memory lane.

Here is my literary agent report card. I set the bar for passing very low; a response. Professionalism is a two-way street. A response to a business inquiry deserves at least a 10 second response in a timely manner. All an agent needed to do to pass was to hit the return arrow on the query email, cut and paste a canned rejection letter on the reply page and hit send. Since agents can control not only the flow of queries via opening and closing query windows, but the number of clients they take on, there is no excuse for not responding to every query they accept. “Too busy” is not an excuse, for who knows what else they would be “too busy” to do, should they take your work on.

All these are American agents. All represent science fiction. All are open to queries from unpublished authors, and all were open to submissions when I submitted my query. All but one query was sent on or before Oct 1 – i.e. 3+ months or more ago.

Pass:

Hannah Bowman, Liza Dawson Associates; 4 Weeks – Stacy Testa, Writers House; 9 Weeks – Adam Schear, DeFiore & Co.; 9 Weeks – Jim McCarthy, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret LLC; 12 Weeks – Andrea Somberg, Harvey Klinger Literary Agency; 6 Weeks – Zoe Plant, The Bent Agency; 1 Week – Cameron McClure, Donald Maass Literary Agency; 5 Weeks

Fail:

Markus Hoffmann, Regal Hoffmann & Associates – Peter Rubie. FinePrint Literary Management – Shannon Snow, Creative Media Agency – Stephen Barbara, Inkwell Management – Joshua A Bilmes, Jabberwocky Literary Agency – Matt Bialer, Sandford & Greenburger – Stacy Testa, Writershouse – Michael Harriot, Folio Literary Management – Suzie Townsend, New Leaf – Lane Heymont, The Tobias Agency – Amanda Rutter*, Azantian Literary Agency – Naomi Davis, Bookends A Literary Agency

So what did I learn from this exercise?

First, and foremost, how happy I am that my creative works are not being held hostage by these people. I can reach a small but appreciative audience all on my own, doing it my way. I knew that already, but it made me appreciate the choice I made eight years ago all the more.

I came to better appreciate what people who view being a writer as a romantic occupation, and want to be a “real” one, have to endure in their pursuit of their dream. Better them than me, but still, they should be treated better than what they are.

The other benefit was a little more speculative. As time went on, I found myself vaguely dissatisfied with some parts of the novel, even after I had sent it off to my beta readers. Since I had the time, I took that time to try to address those nagging doubts by doing some revisions to the novel. I ended up adding over 5,000 words to it in the process. The question I can’t answer is; would I have done that if I hadn’t submitted the novel, or would I have released it with those nagging doubts? By the time I finished writing it, I knew that I would be submitting it. I knew that if, on the off chance, it would be picked up, it would go through several bouts of editing, so that it didn’t have to be perfect. But if this hadn’t been the case, would I have released it as it was in June? Or would I have held off and revised it, as I eventually did?. I can’t say. On one hand, I’m not the most patient of men, but on the other, I did delay the release of one of my early novels because I was dissatisfied with it, so going over it again would not have been out of the question. In any event, I see the advantage of waiting a while before releasing a story, though whether I will or not do so in the future is an open question, one that may never arise again. We’ll see.

At any rate, I have emerged from query hell unscathed and wiser for it. All to the good.

*Just as I pushed publish on this, I received an email from Amanda Rutter saying that she was leaving the business. It is a tough business, for writers and agents alike.

My first report can be found here:

https://wordpress.com/post/writerssupportingwriters.com/953

— Mark Paxson

I’ve written several times in recent months about my experimenting with “going wide” in my publishing efforts. For those not in the know, this is basically using publishing platforms that distribute your books widely, as opposed to publishing through Amazon’s KDP with its limitations and monopolistic tendencies.

What I believe are the biggest names in publishing wide are Draft2Digital and Smashwords. They are in the process of merging, but it appears that, while merged, they will keep separate features. Most notably, Smashwords has its own store for books published through its service. Draft2Digital does not. But D2D recently offered all of its authors the opportunity to be included in Smashwords’ store.

Another well-known wide publisher is IngramSpark — which is actually the granddaddy of them all. Some of the other publishers basically piggyback onto some of IngramSpark’s services. I did not go with IngramSpark because of customer service issues I had with them. Instead, I opted for D2D. There are some odd quirks about D2D, but I have found the process to publish both ebook and paperback on D2D to be easier than doing so through KDP.

As I’ve written before, I published a novella and short story collection via D2D. Those were published in August – October of last year. According to the stats on D2D, I’ve sold a combined 100 copies of those two books since then. While a lot of those sales are still through Amazon, there have been sales on Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, and a couple of other platforms.

I have no idea how things would have gone if I had limited these books to KDP’s options. Would the few sales I made through other retailers have been made up by pages read through Kindle Unlimited? Are there other ways that Amazon pushes books published through them that we writers don’t see? Ways that they don’t utilize for indie authors brave enough to buck their monopolistic tendencies? I don’t know.

Here’s what I do know though. I like the idea of having my books more widely available and also the idea of it being easier to put my books in local bookstores and libraries if I try to do that — something that is very difficult with the Amazon-only approach. Whether I make more sales this way or not may not be the most important factor.

As a result, I’m in the process of re-publishing my older books on D2D so that they can also be available more widely. I started with my first novel, am in the process of finalizing a short story collection that combines my first two short story collections, and will be wrapping it up with a novel I published in 2021.

Will any of this make a difference? Who knows. But I prefer this approach. So I’m sticking with it. Here’s one reason … Draft2Digital informs its readers of promotions the various retailers are running. You can apply, typically including only one book at time as long as it meets the promo’s requirements, and then … well, that’s the weakness. Some of the retailers don’t bother to let you know if your book is included in the promo and it’s also not entirely clear to me how these promos actually work. But … at least it’s something. Other than Kindle Unlimited, nothing Amazon has offered has done anything for sales for me.

If you have any questions about D2D or going wide, ask away in the comments. I also recommend a Facebook group called Wide for the Win filled with authors who have way more experience with this than I do.

Next up for me … uploading all of my books into Google Play and then trying a few Facebook ads.

–Berthold Gambrel

You probably know about the new AI chatbot, ChatGPT. If you somehow don’t, Kevin Brennan wrote a blog post about it here.

There is a lot of concern in the community that it will mean the end of writing as we know it. And, understandably so. After all, AI destroying everything is an age-old science fiction trope. Everyone knows it, and yet people build it anyway. Welcome to the Torment Nexus, ladies and gentlemen!

However, I’m a glass half-full kind of guy. The optimistic view on this is that, as the traditional publishing industry turns towards churning out mediocre by-the-numbers writing, people will start to long for that hand-crafted touch that only a human writer can provide. Enter indie authors, who can produce unique, offbeat, and interesting stories that traditional publishers wouldn’t touch.

So, basically, the same as now, only more so. 🙂

Of course, there is a possibility the AI will get so powerful it can produce truly human-like writing. However, if that happens, we’ll probably have much bigger problems to worry about than just our future careers as writers. Survival of the species, for example.

I say, don’t worry about what you can’t control, and in the meantime make the best of things. You can’t compete with the machine, so don’t. Instead, produce things so original and creative that you’re in a completely different market than the computer-generated pablum.

— Mark Paxson

Stepping away from posts about writing and publishing and the like, I want to share a book I just finished.

Regular viewers of our video chats will know that several of us are big P.G. Wodehouse fans. That does not include me. Just as evidence of my lack of fandom, I originally typed P.D. and thought that was correct until I looked it up.

In our most recent video chat, which is still going through editing and should be posted soon, after more discussion about P.G. Wodehouse, I agreed that I would read one of his stories and asked for a recommendation. And that is how Right Ho, Jeeves appeared on my Kindle.

I finished the book a day or two ago and here’s what I think. First off, I appreciated that unlike may books written way back when, it was not dense. It was not filled with pages of unnecessary description. No, instead, there was a lot of dialogue and things happening. While the narrator, Bertram Wooster, occasionally wallowed in his head at times, it was not excessive. I actually found the story enjoyable and easy to read.

That said, and Berthold knows this about me, I simply don’t get comedy in stories. I rarely laugh while reading. Nary a chuckle rumbles from within while I’m reading something that is supposed to be funny. It was the same with Right Ho, Jeeves. I believe I slightly chuckled one time while reading it and I think that one incident related to something I interpreted as a comment on the art and challenge of writing, more than what was going on within the story.

Other than that, however, I read the thing with a straight face and … well, while I could see people being amused by the some of the shenanigans, even laughing at the events and dialogue and the names and all that, it just doesn’t work that way for me. So … I did not laugh. Instead of seeing humor in the story, I saw silliness. Which, I admit a lot of humor derives from silliness. I mean, one of my most favorite movies is The Holy Grail – a monument to silliness.

I guess I just don’t see silliness and feel it when I’m reading.

I asked the others during this last video chat if I was weird because of that. Fortunately, Richard came to my defense and acknowledged family members who have said the same thing.

What about you? Do you find humor in what you read? Whether the humor was intentional or not. And if not that, is there some other hole in your ability to appreciate what you read. Some other genre or trick of the trade that simply doesn’t work on you?

Before I forget, in case I don’t blog anything else in the next week or two, may you and yours have the most joyous of holiday seasons, regardless of how you choose to celebrate. And in 2023 … write on!

This is my followup to a post from July 2 2022 called “Through Query Hell on a Lark” that can found here:

https://wordpress.com/post/writerssupportingwriters.com/953

In it I described how and why I decided to see if I could get my most recent novel traditionally published by going through the time honored query process. The short answer is that on a whim I had submitted the novel to Gollancz, a British SF publisher, during one of their rare open windows when they accept manuscripts from authors directly.Since I would not hear back from them for six to nine months,I had the time to see if I could find an agent to represent it. I have not yet heard back from Gollancz yet, but I am drawing a line under the query process.

Over the course of the summer and fall I submitted my query letter to 15 agents, four on the first of each month starting in July, from my list of 31 agents who handled science fiction and accepted queries from unpublished writers. The remaining 16 were either closed for submission or did not seem worth the trouble. To date I’ve received 7 form letter rejection emails, and with the last submission 6 weeks ago, I think I can safely conclude that the other 8 queries are rejections by default.

Given that I did not expect to sell my book, and I was going through the process on, as I said, on a lark, the process was actually sort of fun – a challenge that resulted in several very good things.

The first positive thing was I joined a discord channel run by a “Traditionally published Fantasy Author” which he set up to raise a little money and provide a forum for writers to help each other on their quest to get published. It was not as active as I had expected, but it did provide a forum to talk about the writing experience, see the work of other writers. I was able to get into the mindset of people who are serious about being traditionally published.

Secondly, it was interesting to think about my story and how I could sell the story to an agent and publisher. I tried several different query letters and actually changed the title of the novel from The Road to EuraEast to the rather tongue-in-cheek title of The Girl on the Kerb to make the story sound more mainstream. Nothing worked, but qua sera, sera.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, I used the extra time I had in waiting on the publisher and the querying process to rewrite and improve the final third of the story, adding nearly 6,000 words to it in the process. I had some little nagging doubts about some parts and the time to address them. Now, I don’t know if those nagging doubts would’ve kept me from releasing the book myself since by the time I was finished writing it I knew I needed to submit it to the publisher within two weeks. However, the extra time I had gave me the time and eto improve the story – a lesson learned for any future story. Usually I’m too impatient to let a story sit around for several months. At my age I could be dead tomorrow and no eyebrows would be raised.

Fourthly, I now have a much better appreciation of what thousands of writers have to go through in their pursuit of their dream of being a traditionally published author A “real” author in their mind.And how crushing every rejection email, or perhaps even worse, silence, must be for them. I have to admire the strength of their commitment to their dream. Still, better them than me.

Fifthly, because of the process I looked deeper into the realities of traditional publishing, and it’s not a good place. Between discussions on the discord channel and what the Penguin/Random House-Simon and Schuster trial revealed about the publishing business, it is clear that the so-called midlist author is a dying breed. Traditional publishing is dominated by multinational corporations who only care for the bottom line, and as I reported in the post below, best selling books are the ones that pay the bills.

https://wordpress.com/post/writerssupportingwriters.com/1024

I’ve heard both, booksellers and authors lament that authors these days are only given a book two to become a bestselling author before they are out the door of the big publishers. In fact, the author running the discord channel had his first two trilogies published by one of the big five publishers, but when the second trilogy did not sell as well as expected, he was out the door. His last two books have been published by a small press. And while it’s not one of those very small presses,it is a definite step down, career wise. Now it ain’t easy in indie-publishing, but it ain’t any easier in traditional publishing – even after they let you in the door.

And lastly I have come to really appreciate my decision to release my own books directly to readers. I was 65 in 2015 when I decided to self-publish my books so it was a no-brainer decision, but still… Now I really appreciate the fact that my creative endeavors had not been held hostage by a few dozen agents – people who judge a book by reading the query letter, and maybe glancing over the first five pages of the manuscript. And how lucky I am that real people read and enjoy them. That’s what it’s all about.

So, all in all, my travels in Query Hell was a worthwhile experience. Once.

— Mark Paxson

Over at her blog, Audrey put up a post about what makes her close a book before she reaches The End. Her list of four includes: animal abuse; graphic violence or grossness as the point of the book; a hateful main character; long sections of action unrelieved by dialogue, description, or backstory.

I thought I’d bring that conversation over here because it’s an interesting topic for writers to consider as they write their stories. Not that I think one reader’s view of the road blocks is determinative. No, definitely not that. And Audrey mentions in her post how reading a book is a complex thing, an interaction between the writer’s imagination and the reader’s imagination. The result of that interaction is that the experience, the outcome, may just be different for every reader.

But, still, there are good reasons a writer might want to consider the possibility of road blocks. Each of Audrey’s road blocks is legitimate and likely held by a lot of readers. People don’t want to read about animal abuse (or child abuse), and endless graphic violence can turn off a lot of people. And, of course, one of the rules of writing is that there has to be something appealing about the main character. Right?

I commented on Audrey’s post about one of my road blocks and decided to post a few more here. But … before I do that, let me first acknowledge that I almost never have a “did not finish” on books that I read. I almost always power my way through to the bitter end. Although, I did one time stop reading a book with less than ten pages to go because … I. Just. Didn’t. Care. Anymore. Nope. I didn’t care what happened to the characters. I didn’t care how the author wrapped things up. I just didn’t care. So I stopped reading.

And that’s the first road block.

1. Characters and/or a story line that I don’t care about. Yes, that’s vague and very specific to me. What am I going to care about? How can the writer know? I have no idea and I can’t really explain what it is that I’m looking for, but I’ve got to care about what I’m reading. Good luck writers of the world!
2. Too many characters introduced too quickly. This really is at the top of my list, and it’s what I mentioned over on Audrey’s blog. If ten pages in, you have introduced 15 different people to me, I’m not really going to be very happy. Even worse, is if they have similar names or similar relationships. You know, like Andrew, who has four sisters — Ann, Anna, Annie, Annalisa. And Andrew’s best friend is Anthony. Stop it already!
3. Taking too long to expose what the story actually is. I’m not sure how I select books to read, but frequently I do so without reading the blurb. Or, if I read the blurb, I don’t immediately start reading the book. It may sit in the stack for a month or two before I crack it open and, by then, I have long forgotten what the blurb disclosed. As a result, frequently, when I start reading, I have no idea what the story is actually about. And it absolutely pisses me off if the author doesn’t get into the story line and disclose something that gives me an idea pretty early on. Seriously, if I get to page 50 and I still have no idea what I’m reading and why I’m reading it, I’m going to start wondering why I’m bothering when there are other books in that stack.
4. Too much description. How much is too much? I don’t know. I just don’t need or want a lot of description in what I read. See above about the importance of the reader’s imagination contributing to the outcome of the story for that specific reader.

The thing about this list, as I state above, is that none of these things typically rise to the point where I close the book and don’t finish it. And it’s a good thing in some instances. For example, the first time I read Kite Runner, I wanted to close the book after the first 20 pages or so. I read the first chapter (or was it two?), and I had no idea what I was reading. But I didn’t, and that book is now in my list of favorite books. I’ve read it several times since and still enjoy it.

That’s why I think I finish almost everything I start. I may miss something spectacular if I put a book away before it’s time. Yes, FOMO is a real thing!!

One final comment regarding Audrey’s list. I totally get people who don’t want to read about abuse and violence, particularly if it feels egregious and unnecessary. Those things, however, are not on my list of road blocks to reading. Instead, those things frequently draw me into a story. It’s like with movies — most of my favorite movies are intense and dark and, yes, violent.

Sadly, violence and abuse are a part of the human condition and I don’t want to shy away from those things when I read or watch. In my current stack of books to read the next couple of months is A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I read it a few years ago. I will never recommend it to any other reader. It is the most brutal book I’ve ever read. Over 800 pages of the most horrendous stuff I’ve ever read. One of the main characters is absolutely beaten and brutalized throughout his life. But … here’s the deal for me … buried in those 800+ pages of brutality is the potential for hope and for love. And I need to read it again to see if my memory is correct about that — to remind myself of how it ended and that hope and love are always there.

So … if you haven’t commented over on Audrey’s post, now that you’re here, what don’t you want to read when you’re reading? What do you shy away from when you’re writing? Do you think about the reader’s experience and imagination while you’re writing?

— Mark Paxson

When I published my first novel back in 2012, I ran several promos on EReaderNews Today. Some were free promos, some were .99 promos. the end result of those promos was that thousands downloaded that novel and I actually made a couple thousand dollars on the book.

When I published a YA novel in 2021, I looked forward to running a promo on ENT and watching the sales soar. Well … that’s not what happened. My promo produced 11 downloads of the book. At .99, that meant I didn’t even reach $4 in earnings for a promo I paid someting like $40-50 for.

In August, I published a domestic thriller novella. I published it on Draft2Digital, as I’ve discussed here several times. D2D provides access to various promos the different e-book retailers and I’ve signed up for those. Unfortunately, D2D and the retailers don’t always let you know if you were selected for one of their promos. So … I have no idea what, if anything, has happened with those promos. Except that I haven’t seen any uptick in my sales.

Somewhere along the way, I read something about Written Word Media — another paid promo option. Like most, they have an email list and promise to include your book in an email that will go to hundreds of thousands of readers. So … I decided to try again.

First up, on November 30, my new domestic thriller novella. The promo cost $65 and promised an email to over 200,000 readers. The day the promo ran, I got about a dozen new downloads. In the days since, there have been more, bringing the downloads for that book since November 30 to about thirty. Meaning, I may make $20 on a promo that cost me $65.

I also ran a promo for that YA novel. This one was only $25 and promised to be sent to over 100,000 readers. As of this writing, that promo produced 4 downloads. So … $25 produced about $1.30 in revenue.

This simply is not a workable concept anymore. (I’d love to hear if other writers out there have experienced better success with these.) I’m convinced that the problem is that the market is just absolutely over-saturated at this point.

And, of course, there’s the other dynamic … do people actually read these emails and buy books from them. Well, obviously, a few do, but is it a meaningful number who do so? It’s not looking that way. I also wonder just how many people on their email lists are other writers, who signed up so they could run their own promo.

Anyway, I’m done with getting sucked into these promo sites. Next up is that I’m going to try some Facebook ads and see what happens. Oh, and I’m also going back to my earlier books and will be publishing them through D2D, to get away from the Amazon monopoly with those as well.

— Mark Paxson

In response to Berthold’s post, I have thoughts.

When I first started writing, I was a regular on a website called Toasted Cheese. It’s still around and produces one of the best literary e-zines there is. But, back then, I remember posting something about whether stories have to have “a point.”

So … let me back up a bit more. Back to high school. I hated English class because we were always asked to analyze what the writer meant. What their point was. And all I thought was … maybe the writer wrote the story or the poem simply because they wanted to write a story. Must every story have a point?!

I still feel this way. But when I asked this question on Toasted Cheese, the response I remember getting was something like “yes, every story has a point even if you don’t think there is one.” Yes, even my stories … had a point, whether I intended a point or not.

And that just continues to rankle me. With one exception, I haven’t stories with the intention of making a point. I just write stories based on an idea and to see what I can do with that idea.

Which brings up Berthold’s question. Depth. I feel like this is related to whether or not a story should have a point. Sure, some stories have a point. That doesn’t mean all stories have a point. Nor do all stories have to have “depth,” which, to be honest, I’m not sure what that actually means.

I now this. My first novel was what I believed was a simple story. Since then, my ideas have got more complex, more layered. But not necessarily more “depth.” At least as I understand the term.

One of my current works in progress is a dystopian take on the U.S. in the near future. It has some complexities to it, but ultimately is a simple tale. Recently though I read Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, which are also a dystopian tale. They provide me with some ideas for even more complexity, and more depth to the story I’m working on. And I think about that and wonder if I want to go there. Do I really want to write something other than the “simple” story I thought of when I started this thing? Do I really want to include within the story ruminations of human nature and how people can get to the point where they get to in my story? Or do I just want that stuff to happen organically.

That’s where I have a difficulty with “depth” in stories. Frequently, I feel like the author uses a chain saw where a scalpel would have done. The “depth” or the “point” becomes so oppressive that it destroys the story that is really what I want to read. My preference is that a story be the story and that readers take from it what they will. Even if one reader says “ah, yes, the moon is made of green cheese,” while another reader says “now I understand the Pythagorean theorem.”

This is the beauty of writing. Of fiction. A writer writers. Readers read and take from it what they will. There doesn’t have to be a point. There doesn’t have to be depth. Except for that which the reader gets from the words on the page.

Section MMX, paragraph a, clause ii, of the Rules For Writers specifies that a story shall have a depth of not less than….

Just kidding. Here at WSW, we don’t think much of so-called “rules for writers.” This is purely an exploration of a question Chuck Litka brought up in response to my post on my writerly dream. Namely, how much depth should a book have?

By “depth,” I mean both things like re-readability as well as how many subtle nuances it has.

There are some stories that are fun, but don’t really bear multiple readings. There are other stories that are so incredibly dense you can’t even tell what they’re about without consulting reference books.

In my opinion, it’s better to write the former than the latter. But best of all is to write something that works as a story, but can also be re-analyzed over again and reveal new facets.

One example of a book like this is Dune. The main plot of Dune is actually very simple. (In the broadest terms, it’s the same basic plot as The Lion King.) But everything else about Dune is not very simple. The world of Dune is full of complex political ideas, Islamic influences, environmentalist themes, abstract philosophical concepts, and some really trippy things that are probably best chalked up to being written in the 1960s. Herbert himself said the book had many different layers.

If you like Dune, you can re-read it multiple times to follow all these different threads. But if not, you can still think of it as a book about a guy on a quest to avenge his father and claim the throne and leave it at that.

Note that I’m not saying a story needs to have this level of depth to be great. Right Ho, Jeeves is one of my favorite books ever, but I wouldn’t call it multifaceted. It’s just fun, plain and simple.

But say you want to write a fantasy epic of immense depth and complexity. It needs some serious of world-building. Or what about literary fiction? Should you work to fill it with layers of meaning and symbolism?

And maybe the most critical question of all: how much “depth” in fiction is in the eye of the writer, and how much the reader? Hemingway said of The Old Man and the Sea: “The sea is the sea. The old man is the old man.” This hasn’t stopped many people from saying otherwise. So maybe every book is as deep or as shallow as the reader wants it to be.